


Stupidity

by 9r7g5h



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9r7g5h/pseuds/9r7g5h
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had a brain. He just didn’t use it much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stupidity

If one was to say that Beast Boy was stupid, one would find themselves to be, quite simply, wrong.

Of course, he did have his moments, times when there was nothing else anyone could do but shake their head and wonder how he had managed to survive for so long, because it was beyond them. Everyone had those, no matter whether they were human, alien, demon, or animal. From the great Superman to the smallest amoeba, every living thing in the history of the universe has had a moment or two of stupidity in their lives.

Beast Boy’s life just so happened to seem like one big string of stupid moments.

Not to say, however, that Beast Boy was not smart. Honestly, he was. The only child on the Doom Patrol, and a young one at that, much of his life had been spent as the center of attention for four extremely intelligent adults, all of whom had decided that it was to be their personal duty to ensure that he did not grow up to be a disgrace to them. So, by the time he was nine, he could read, write, multiply by twelve, properly build and disassemble a molecular generator, understand the basic principles of quantum mechanics, and tie his shoes without Rita helping him. Overall, he had a pretty good basic education.

Then there where the things that the others had not been able to teach him, the things he had just had to learn through experience as he expanded upon his shape shifting abilities. He learned about air resistance and the force of gravity while practicing his dive bombs as a hawk. He learned about projectile force while hopping through battles as a frog, quickly coming to realize that the amount of effort that he had put into his springs would neither take him as high nor as far as he had wished, so he better well be prepared not to get stepped on. He learned about head winds as a sparrow, and about tail winds as flinch, all the while experiencing first hand just how freaking cold winter could get as a snake.

He also learned just how powerful the eyes of a kitten could be, but that was different story.

Yes, Beast Boy was extremely intelligent, perhaps even rivaling with Raven on the pure amount of knowledge he contain within his head. Not that either of them would admit it, for Raven would just find the comparison insulting, and to prove it would mean that Robin would expect more out of Beast Boy, something he just did not want to bother with.

For, although he was intelligent, Beast Boy liked being seen as stupid. Stupidity did have its advantages, in the long run, especially in their business. If people underestimated him as the stupid, incompetent one, then they would focus less of their attention on him, allowing him to slip through their defenses that much easier. If he could use that advantage to end a battle before anyone or anything got hurt, then so be it. He would run outside butt naked except for a pair of underwear on his head if it meant keeping people safe.

Plus, the home life was that much easier too.

Robin was a good leader. He kept everyone organized, mostly happy, and, as far as they all could tell, eating the blue fuzz had not killed them yet, so healthy could be added to that list as well. But, mostly, he just kept everyone alive. All of them were painfully aware of just how dead they would all be without him, and so were grateful to have him.

Even if his chore schedule did suck.

However, if there was one thing that Robin was so good at doing that he was actually terrible at it, it was reading people he trusted. Shortly after the team had formed, he had pegged everyone into slots, labeling them in convenient ways so he would always know exactly where they stood. Not that those slots and labels had not changed over the years, for they had, but it was because of this annoying little system of his that it had taken him and Starfire so long to get together in the first place. It was also the reason why, even after they had been partners for almost five years, Robin still had him pegged as the loyal, lazy, video game playing shape shifter who did not know when to keep his mouth shut.

Hey, if his whining helped him to get out of morning training, then so be it.

In all honesty though, training could be kinda fun at times. It was cool to see just how big or small of an animal he could be, and it was pretty amazing whenever he tried a new creature and it literally became a part of him. He was constantly changing, becoming something better than he had been the day before, and who would not want that? It also helped that training was seeming more and more like a video game each day, as if he had been sucked into the television again and was fighting the evil robots that made up the main minions of the big bad in Super Monkeys 7. That part was definitely dude-worthy.

And probably on purpose. But whatever.

What he did not like was when Robin forced them all up before the crack of dawn and had them do ten hours straight of training as a ‘warm up.’ When he got into one of those moods, there was almost nothing that could stop him, save a beat down that more often than not took all of them to accomplish. Even if he was physically the weakest of them all, in matters of pure strategy and underhanded moves that would get him the upper hand in any situation, Robin was the master.

It was times like this that his ‘stupidity’ really helped him shine. When enough became enough, he would take a couple of hits for the team, letting Robin think that he was down for the count before leaping to deal the final blow. Then, before anyone could question his ‘lucky hit,’ he would say something too stupid for them to comprehend and scamper off to return to his world of virtual bananas and poo flinging.

It helped him get out of filing paper work too.

Although no one had ever commented on the fact, Beast Boy knew that his perceived stupidity helped the rest of the team too. Take Cyborg, for instance. The half robot was, literally, more technologically advanced then any of them, but it was because of that that he felt the loneliest. He could never be ‘normal’ again, no matter how hard he wished to be. Even if they found a way to hide his mechanical bits, underneath the fake skin suite, he would still be a machine. He could never change what he was, but at least sometimes he could forget.

And Beast Boy knew his antics helped to do just that.

Every day, whenever they were in the kitchen together cooking food, Beast Boy would purposefully start up an argument about his friend’s meat eating habits, trying to force his delicious plate of tofu into his metallic jaw, despite the futility of it. This would often spark an argument unlike any other ever seen within the world, for often times it ended in displays of physical violence that would have made the rest of the team proud had they not been so messy. Video games were the same way. When they were both wrapped up in a game, they were too busy to think about what they really were. When they were hanging out together, they were not the biggest superheroes in Jump City. They were just two teenage boys trying to beat the snot out of each other. So what if he had to keep coming up with ways to beat Cyborg at Stankball, admittedly the most disgusting game he had ever played, if also the most fun? Well, if a humiliating defeat at the hands of his mechanical friend was what was called for, then he was prepared to take a hit or two.

Starfire also benefited from his inherent stupidity. He knew most of the stuff that had happened in American history, could totally understand most of the things the others were saying when they were being all technologically, and was more than well versed on the current events and pop culture. When Starfire was around though, he just pretended that he was not. If she was confused about something, and he pretended to be even more confused about the same thing, then their circular conversations would often lead to the poor alien girl figuring it out herself, though not always in the exact way that a human would have understood it. It helped her assimilate easier, and who was he to deny her that joy she always felt when she was able to figure out the latest conundrum of her new home?

So, for the most part, Beast Boy happily confirmed within the inner confines of his mind that his stupidity was more of an asset then a disability. And sure, some times he got facts wrong, or he allowed television to influence his theories a tad bit too much every now and then, but for about ninety percent of his life, he was smart.

The other ten percent however, Beast Boy had to admit to himself as he was fazed through yet another window to be cast into the ocean once again, he was more than just stupid.

When it came to a certain blue cloaked empath, he was nothing more than a brain-dead, love struck fool. And a complete idiot that it had taken him so long to realize why it was his brain never worked properly around her.


End file.
